Ideal Adjuvant Radiation Candidates Identified

Researchers have identified what they believe are the ideal candidates for adjuvant radiotherapy following radical prostatectomy (RP), according to a recent study.

These include prostate cancer (PCa) patients who have two of the following pathologic features found at surgery: Gleason score of 8 or higher, clinical stage pT3/pT4 disease, and positive lymph nodes, researchers Firas Abdollah, MD, and colleagues at Vita-Salute University in San Raffaele, Milan, Italy, reported online ahead of print in European Urology.

They evaluated 1,049 PCa patients treated with RP and extended pelvic lymph node dissection alone or in combination with adjuvant treatments. All patients had positive surgical margins, pT3/pT4 disease or both, with or without positive lymph nodes.

On multivariable analyses, the presence of at least two of the aforementioned pathologic features was significantly associated with lower cancer-specific and overall mortality.

Of the entire cohort, 43.6% had none of the pathologic features, 22.1% had one, 20.7% had two, and 13.6% had all three.